Monday, February 2, 2009

Jumbled Thoughts on Groundhog Day

I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to write about in this blog entry...but then I got high.

No, no, no, I am just joshing you. Unlike, Michael Phelps, I did not solicit the services of Senor Ganja. Instead, I realized that what I really wanted to write about was good for only about a paragraph and a half. And then I also realized that this weekend was very eventful news-wise and it would be a waste to save all of it for a Sunday Morning Links about 6 and a half days from now.

Of course, I couldn't make the full jump to pure-stream of consciousness. So I organized my thoughts then threw them up onto Blogger. The title "Jumbled Thoughts" may be a bit of a misnomer, but enjoy these "mini blog entries" anyway.

- It is Groundhog Day. And wouldn't you know it, that little furry rat bastard rat bastard saw his shadow again. And just like that, Punxsutawney (that marks the last time I will spell "Punxsutawney" in this blog) Phil has condemned us to 6 more weeks of absolute soul-crushing winter. I hate that goddamn wood-chuck. Although to be fair, the good folks of Punxsu....Western Pennsylvania have created an unrealistic expectation for Phil. I mean, really! YOU try not seeing a shadow on a sunny day. That is like punishing someone for getting wet when you throw them in a pool. Poor Phil has become Fate's puppet and will constantly be blamed for the astronomical phenomenon known as "winter" even though we all know it will run through Mid-March anyway. At least give the Groundhog a test that he actually has control over. Why can't they just present him with two sexy groundhog females, one that represents "Spring" and one that represents "Winter", and whichever groundhog Phil chooses to copulate with is the outcome of the seasons. That would be a far more compelling story-line than a rodent seeing his shadow.

- Apparently, there was some football game on yesterday. I didn't really care about any other result than a Steeler's loss. That isn't an endorsement of the Cardinals, I didn't care if they won. I just wanted the Steelers not to. Maybe the game drags on for 34 Overtimes and they have to call it a draw. Maybe the Steelers all get mysteriously ill and cannot field an 11 man team. Alas, it wasn't to be as the Steelers won 27-23 on Santonio Holmes's miracle catch. Two and half seconds after the game ended, everyone seemed quick to crown it "The Greatest Super Bowl Ever." I am sorry, but that is the single most absurd thing I have ever heard in my life. This wasn't even the best Super Bowl in the past 368 days! The Giants' David taking down the 18-0 Patriots' Goliath was one of the finest 60 minutes of sports I have ever witnessed. This game had about 4-6 minutes of interesting content and the other 54-56 minutes consisted of the refs announcing yet ANOTHER penalty. This was sloppy, ugly football and no one really deserved in my mind...except for Santonio Holmes and Larry Fitzgerald. They should have called the game a draw and split the Lombardi Trophy in half for Santonio and Larry.

- Even though the Cardinals lost, I guarantee you that Cards fans in the Tucson area were entreated to the greatest 30 seconds of their life. First, Larry Fitzgerald catches a Kurt Warner pass in the center of the field with no one in front of him and charges 60 yards down the field to take the field, then the Super Bowl feed is dropped and approximately 10 seconds of hard-core porn is shown in its place. I can only hope that when Grady Sizemore hits the go-ahead homer in the bottom of the 8th in game 7 of the 2009 World Series, that it is immediately followed by 10 seconds of pornography. What a gift!

- As for my buddy Michael Phelps. Come one, dude....come on. I know you are certainly not the first athlete to smoke Mary-J and you certainly won't be the last, but you can't let me, Joe Fan, know that. Don't ever let that picture see the light of day! Drink a little at parties and if you absolutely cannot live without a joint or bong-hit, just do it in a dark room with no windows and NO DAMN CAMERAS. I know you aren't losing any endorsements from this, but you are certainly losing about 892,103 Soccer mom fans which is probably about 39% of your "fanbase." Just not smart. Every time you put on a pound or two for the rest of your life, you will have to deal with Late Night TV hosts and sports announcers saying that you must have the "Munchies." Enjoy!

- And finally, the original topic I was going to blog about. Remember when I blogged about Barack Obama strongly resembling Matt Santos from The West Wing? Well, that got me wondering about which fictional Black President Barack Obama is most going to resemble, which got me thinking about David Palmer, which got me thinking about 24...which ultimately got me to watch the first 5 hours of Season 7 of 24. I used to like 24 quite a bit. It was exciting to watch America's version of James Bond, Jack Bauer, torture terrorists, save the world and slowly fall into moral oblivion for a time. But at a certain point the show just became a parody of itself. You could see every plot point coming from a mile away. Another mole in CTU? Another terrorist being tortured? Another nuclear device? I eventually could take no more and sat all of Season 6 out. Now that I've watched the first quarter of Season 7, however, I am back in. The cliches of the show aren't much different. Jack is still insane and insanely effective at what he does. There are still moles, leaks and corruptions everywhere in U.S government and there are still numerous lapses in logic. But the producers have finally made the sane choice and attempted to bring the show a bit closer to the real world. Instead of working for the Counter Terrorist Unit, which seems to be the most easily-infiltrated organization on the planet and seems to have no problem torturing anyone and everyone to get information, Jack is now involved with the FBI which actually, you know, doesn't break the law. In this version of 24, the Attorney General might actually come knocking if you punch a bad guy's bullet wound or cut off his oxygen. It is a small difference to inject just enough life back into the show for me to watch it....until they do something inexcusably stupid again.

3 comments:

I almost started watching 24 until I noticed at the beginning of an episode Jack Bauer was on a rapidly nosediving airplane, I think it was Air Force One, and at the end of the episode he was in the Oval Office trying to convince someone who took the Vice President hostage to drop their gun. How does all of that possibly happen within one hour?

Why can't they just present him with two sexy groundhog females, one that represents "Spring" and one that represents "Winter", and whichever groundhog Phil chooses to copulate with is the outcome of the seasons.